Friday, January 14, 2011

FFwD - Gnocchi la Parisienne

The opening photo says it all! Yes, when I saw that this week's French Fridays with Dorie recipe, Gnocchi a la Parisienne, was effectively dough balls in white sauce and cheese, I felt slightly green. This is a dish that never in a million years would I have chosen to make by myself.

However, the food adventurer in me stepped up to the plate and made it anyway, and you know what? It ain't half bad. Gnocchi a la Parisienne is really just mac and cheese with balls of boiled dough instead of boiled pasta, and it tastes just fine - sure, a little on the nursery food side, like mac and cheese, but seriously not bad. It would be perfect as a midnight snack after coming home from a hard night out.

The bechamel sauce was rather thick, so I found it difficult to spread over my dough balls, but overall, this is a relatively easy dish to make. As I didn't want to eat this for the rest of the week, I cut the recipe down to "perfect for two" size.

Here are my "attractive" dough balls just after boiling - the dough is very sticky and stuck to the spoon that I was shaping the balls with, hence the odd shapes:

This is the other major component of the dish - bechamel sauce:

And here is the finished dish after baking - scary, isn't it!

To see what the other FFwD members thought of this dish, check out the LYL section on the website.

I finish with a quick message to the people of Brisbane, who are currently affected by major floods - my thoughts are with you, and hope that you stay safe.

21 comments:

Well now I am a little more inspired. I was trying to envision how all this was going to go, so having your process photos is great...thank you! Might rally up tomorrow to get this done, might be on Sunday...I have been a very late poster most of the time, oh, well, my goal is just to do it. These actually look interesting and good to me...anything with cheese, and I'm there!

I didn't think that it is already Friday where you live-I was just thinking about you and hoping you weren't affected by the flooding. So glad that you're ok. My heart goes out to everyone there affected.

Your gnocchi looks great! I'm glad you enjoyed it. I also liked it, but the next day, but it won't replace Mac 'n cheese for me.

Gnocchi is delisicious. One of my closest friends is VERY (comically almost) italian, and his mother is even more so. She made the most deliscious Gnocchi in a tomato sauce for sunday dinner... was so good. too me ages to figure out what it ws made of. Now i can make my own, thanks a bunch :)